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Page added on March 9, 2015
8 ways you are killing the environment that you probably didn’t even realize
You know an invention has its drawbacks when even the guy who invented it says he’s sorry he did so.
That would be John Sylvan, inventor of the easy-to-use Keurig coffee maker — an invention deemed “the most wasteful form of coffee” on the planet.
Sylan says he regrets the creation largely due to its severe ecological impact. The Keurig uses disposable plastic coffee pods, called “K-Cups,” which are not easily recyclable or biodegradable.
“I don’t have one,” Sylvan said of the Keurig. “They’re kind of expensive to use. Plus it’s not like drip coffee is tough to make.”
Convenience-obsessed America is the world’s largest coffee consumer. Nearly 85 percent of adults in America drink coffee. According to the National Coffee Association, nearly 1 in 5 adults drink single-cup-brewed coffee in a single day.
Last year, Keurig Green Mountain sold a whopping 9.8 billion K-Cups — enough to circle the Earth more than a dozen times. Keurig says it wants all K-Cups to be recyclable by 2020, but by then it could be too late.
Egg Studios CEO Mike Hachey created the viral video “Kill the K-Cup” last month, which highlights the fact that 13 billion K-Cups went into landfills last year.
“Do you feel OK contributing to that?” Hachey asks.
K-Cups are not the only culprits affecting the environment. America represents only 5 percent of the world’s population, but generates nearly a quarter of the world’s trash.
Many everyday items that we take for granted have a significant impact on Mother Earth. Here are a few humble household supplies that hurt the environment more than you’d expect:
1. Anti-bacterial soap
Nearly 75 percent of anti-bacterial liquid soaps and body washes in the US include an ingredient called triclosan. Research shows that small quantities of triclosan persist after being flushed down the drain, and even after water is treated at sewage plants.
These small quantities then end up in streams and other bodies of water. They can disrupt algae’s ability to perform photosynthesis and build up in fatty tissues of animals higher up in the food chain.
2. Lawn mowers
Mowing the lawn is actually terrible for the environment. According to a Swedish study, a lawn mower produces nearly the same amount of oily air pollution as a 100-mile car trip.
“Lawn and garden equipment really does add to air pollution,” Cathy Milbourn, spokeswoman for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), told ABC last year. “People can reduce the impact it has by using [lawn equipment] in the early morning or in the late afternoon. Or perhaps not at all.”
3. Tea bags
Most of the tea brewed in America is made with tea bags, which means that an average tea drinker consuming 5 cups a day gets through about 13 sq meters of perforated paper every year.
According to a report by Which? Gardening, teabags produced by the some of the top tea manufacturers — including Twinnings, Tetley and PG Tips — are only about 75 percent biodegradable.
While most teabags are made with paper fiber, they also include plastic polypropylene — an ingredient that makes teabags heat-resistant but is not fully biodegradable.
Whitney Kakos, the sustainability manager for Teadirect, says the use of polypropylene is an “industry-wide practice.” There are also the luxurious silken (basically plastic) tea bags. Supposedly of higher quality and visually appealing, these bags are actually harmful to consumers and contribute to landfill waste.
4. Plastic bottles
About 50 billion bottles of water are consumed every year, 30 million of which are consumed in the US alone. Nearly 1,500 water bottles are consumed per second in America. About 17 million barrels of oil are used every year to produce these bottles.
The national recycle rate for PETs, or bottles made with polyethylene terephthalate, is only 23 percent — which means 80 percent of plastic water bottles end up in landfills. And even if we were on our environmentally best behavior, not all plastic bottles placed in designated containers are recycled because only certain types of plastic can be recycled in limited municipalities.
5. Microbeads
Found in everything from toothpaste to exfoliating face washes and body scrubs, microbeads actually wreak havoc on the environment.
According to a recent study by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, these tiny pieces of plastic find their way down our drains through filtration systems to the ocean. Soaking up toxins like a sponge, they then contribute to the plastic pollution of water bodies, potentially starve coral reefs of proper food and negatively affect other marine organisms.
6. Disposable razors
According to the EPA, about 2 billion razors are thrown away every year. Although you can recycle the steel blades, your good ol’ disposable razor most likely makes its way to the landfill.
Add that to the higher environmental cost of production using raw materials and the water used while actually shaving and you’ve got one of the most wasteful bathroom products around.
7. Paper cups
If you think your morning paper cup of coffee is recyclable and environmentally friendly, think again.
Every year, Americans toss out more than 80 billion single-use cups, thanks to our morning coffee runs. These cups are also coated with low-density, heat-resistant polyethylene that is not biodegradable. In addition to these cups’ heading for a landfill and taking more than 20 years to decompose, the very process of making them is extremely harmful to the environment. Production consumes forests and large volumes of water, and expels dirty water.
8. Wooden chopsticks from restaurants
About 3.8 million trees are torn down to produce a staggering 57 billion disposable pairs of chopsticks every year, half of which are used within China. About 77 percent are exported to Japan, 21 percent to South Korea and 2 percent to America.
But despite taxes levied in 2006 and warnings of government regulations to monitor production in 2010, disposable chopstick use, production and discard is on the rise and continues to devastate forests in China at an alarming rate.
17 Comments on "8 ways you are killing the environment that you probably didn’t even realize"
ghung on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 6:08 pm
Guilty.
Repent on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 6:29 pm
Even with 20-200 years to decompose; the Earth has forever. How much of this stuff will be left in 1000 years, in 10,000 years, in a million years? Not much.
Plantagenet on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 6:41 pm
AND Don’t forget that every time you exhale you are emitting CO2.
Every breathe you take contributes to Greenhouse Warming.
dave T on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 6:44 pm
My understanding about plastic waste is that it breaks down to tiny pieces even down to the molecular level. And hangs around a LLLLLLOOOONGGGG time
dubya on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 7:12 pm
I know this is futile, but I cannot leave your comment alone Mr Planet.
Organisms breathing do not contribute anything significant to greenhouse/climate/warming/change/chaos.
Burning wood from permanent forests likewise contribute diddly squat.
As long as the ground is covered in plants and the oceans full of algae the carbon cycle is closed.
The only issue is digging up geologically sequestered (hydro)carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere.
In that regard plastic manufacture is relatively helpful as the durability of plastic keeps it from breaking down in the short term into CH4/CO2.
Unfortunately the one simple and only solution –
stop digging this shit up
– is the only option that is not on the table.
Go Speed Racer. on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 11:09 pm
If we could just build more trash in incinerators, all this krap could get chucked into the fire and generate electricity. Probly a whole lot more than you get from those moss covered solar panels on top of your chicken coop. At your doomstead.
Davy on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 4:19 am
None of that begins to compare with what the China industrial cancer alone is doing. The cement, steel, and assorted other materials all part of China’s huge rush to become first world in a doomed attempt at progress and first world consumption. China’s coal consumption alone is the number one earth killing activity. China is in the largest and most damaging entropic build out of mal-investment the world has ever seen. They blew past America’s stupidity of suburban sprawl a decade ago. Let’s get things in perspective.
So, yes, these mainly American mentioned consumables are horrible. America is in a consumption overshoot. Asia is in a combination of population and consumption overshoot. At least Europe has a population in decline and an economy sinking into deflation and lower output. America is on balance stagnant with the majority of its population in economic decline with the rich offsetting some of this decline. If it were not for immigration the US population would be in decline. Let’s look at trends Asia. Asia has growing population and consumption. The west is in decline. Who is going the right way for the environment and Alt-BAU arrangements? So cherry picking is either agenda driven, consumptive journalism, or a shallow attempt at education on waste.
In reality any use of the automobile is the number one culprit. Cars are almost never criticized as a foundational element of BAU’s destruction. Some criticism at the level of congestion, MPG too low, or smog. Who cares about a little coffee drinking, water bottle drinking, cosmetics consumables, and tea drinking in comparison to the real killer? We have to start at the foundational level of environmental destruction and that is the car culture. The car culture makes BAU possible and that allows all the useless consumption.
Yet, folks you can bitch and moan how horrible this consumption is but you do realize that it supports your BAU local. All BAU locals are connected in a web of economic relationships where economies of scale, complexity, and energy intensity culminate in our basic needs being met. You start removing gears in that process and the clock stops.
We are going to get our clock cleaned one way or another soon because this game of BAU is dated. Dated from limits and diminishing returns. It cannot be sustained and it cannot be grown much more. All this consumption will diminish rather quickly with a generalized BAU descent and we will all be forced into much more local arrangements by default. What’s in your local?
WelshFarmer on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 4:54 am
Davy
The sooner we get our clock cleaned the better. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the current BAU system is utterly irredeemable (sorry Jesus). We aren’t just behaving like yeast. We are like a yeast culture with internal positive feedback. I suspect the end is going to be quite sudden.
forbin on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 5:38 am
“8 ways you are killing the environment that you probably didn’t even realize”
9, turning on the electric light ( or TV ) – burns mostly fossil fuels ( ok I tip my hat to those are fully off grid Solar )
10, Driving to work – cars – unless you have a fully electric one that’s charged via you solar panels ( I ignored the building of said things for now)
11, Shopping – seriously do you need all that stuff? I mean , really?
and the biggest one is ….
12, Breeding – practice is fine , doing is adding to the problem
Share and Enjoy !
Forbin
Davy on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 6:29 am
Amen Welsh!
Forbs,
I like to tell the greenies who drive and live in an energy intensity city environment to acknowledge the hypocrisy. I am a tree hugger that would love to live an early 19th century life but is stuck with an energy intensive family. I am stuck using BAU to transition out of BAU in my doomsted project. I stand before you guys here and acknowledge I over consume per what I preach. I am in a hypocrisy trap that has few options for freedom.
I hope when I am breathing my last breaths it is in a nice post BAU setting. I may be dying of hunger or disease but maybe it will be local and quiet. I can’t wait to look up in the sky and not see contrails or hear traffic on a road a mile away. I long for the grid and the net to go dead so I can be free of this modern life I love and hate. I long for local seasonal food even if that means hunger. I long for a true appreciation of material things because they have meaning in scarcity. I long for the spirituality of family and friends being close. I long for neighbors that matter because of a shared effort at survival. That will make the pain and suffering coming a little better.
There is you morning dose of Davy optimism
Dredd on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 7:02 am
This post is an example of blame the victim syndrome journalism.
It is usually promoted by Oil-Qaeda, the guilty, to divert attention from itself onto the victims.
Gilles Fecteau on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 7:21 am
The largest source of GHG is mostly ignored by the media.
It’s meat consumption. Meat factory farming is the largest source of pollution we have. Going vegetarian, even partially, does more to save the planet and is better for your health.
With so many delicious vegetarian meals available today, you don’t have to give up eating tasty food to go vegetarian.
Davy on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 8:16 am
Gill, you are correct veggies are cool. I have a big garden. I love veggies! but with such a large population forgoing meat is not an option. We are already very close to food insecurity. What we need is lower meat consumption and focus on grass fed beef. There is a significant amount of land that should not be farmed for crops of any kind. This land should be grazed in responsible ways that can improve pasture and lower AGW footprint within the needs of 7BIL hungry people. Grass fed beef is what I am doing on my farm here in central MO. Management intensive grazing does work by maximizing grass nutrition and lowering fossil fuel use.
We cannot afford for health reasons and AGW reason the whole feedlot cattle, pork, chicken production system. But we cannot eliminate meat and expect to feed 7BIL people. It is not mathematically possible so the anti-meat people are preaching a dangerous tune. The preaching should be against factory farming. Even these factory farms will be difficult to phase out and not effect food security.
We have huge built out infrastructure to raise animals. Significant world calorie intake is from meat products. This reliance cannot be decoupled from. This is much like the anti-NUK folks that think we can leave NUk power and still have BAU. BAUtopians green or brown fail to connect the dots of consequences and unintended consequences of actions in a complex interconnected system at limits of growth and diminishing returns. This with a population in overshoot to carrying capacity without energy intensity and systematic complexity.
If BAU is not important then I agree let’s do away with all those things we don’t like for whatever reason. If you care about BAU at least until there is a plan B then accept we are trapped in catch 22’s and unsolvable predicaments of further BAU. BAU has a shelf life and the date is ever closer. So any rash actions could bring BAU down and kill billions in the process.
forbin on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 9:22 am
Davy
“We are already very close to food insecurity”
tell me about it , living in the UK with over 64million others and knowing about the near starvation during WWII when we had about 40 million , then I read somewhere we could only feed 30 million ( oh that’s even with modern farming ) on our available land
good job we’re not allowed to own guns ( gives HMG a better chance of survival 😉 )
going Veggie I think will not cut it if things go Pete Tong …..
darn it! , I too old to emigrate to NZ ……
Forbin
Davy on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 11:19 am
Forb, Pete Tong brings back memories of high school and graphics Bongs.
Marty on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 11:39 am
Strive to ban gas leaf blowers everywhere.
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